Shoot 'Em Up

The attraction of this film for me was the star cast. Clive Owen has made a stunning rise since Closer, helped along by Sin City and Children Of Men. People started to notice Paul Giamatti seriously with his stellar performances in Cinderella Man and Sideways. Top Italian actress Monica Bellucci has always impressed me.

But a lot rests on the style of this film. The plot is okay. A more-or-less continuous gun battle includes minor details about who needs a baby and why, and a bloody war between Giamatti's men and interloper Owen. Along the way, Owen is partnered by tart-with-a-heart Bellucci. But how to describe it? People have referred to its James Bond action sequences and its Sin City air of unreality. For me, that is praising it by comparing it with movies that stand on their own merit, which this one doesn't.

If its air of almost cartoon violence amuses you, that's ok. A woman gives birth in the middle of a gun battle and Owen shoots the umbilical cord so they can run for cover. Owen continues shooting while having sex, falling out of a plane, and anything else writer-director Michael Davis can think up. Owen's marksmanship (and the bad guys' convenient lack of it) is heroic. His death dives look like James Bond castings that don't quite work. Giamatti is equally enjoying his role but I was never sure whether his goofiness was intentional. Seeing him as an arch-gangster and hard man is a bit of a stretch of the imagination for such a lovable actor who usually plays the opposite. Bellucci is the most believable. Her character doesn't quite drift off into fantasy. She was the main thing that stopped me drifting off to sleep.

I think I might have felt more comfortable if Shoot 'Em Up had actually used the semi-comic-strip appearance of Sin City. As a straightforward action movie, I found it derivative without sufficient justification. It pokes fun at American obsessions with guns, breasts and violence - but repeats this endlessly for the length of the movie. The trademark of Owen's character is carrots. He eats them and uses them to kill people with. I'm not sure you can kill someone by pushing a carrot in their mouth so it comes out the back of their neck. I didn't find it funny or zany. But I have to admit that if you do, and many people will, then you will probably think this film is a gas. With a title like Shoot 'Em Up, I should perhaps have been warned and stayed away.

On the plus side, Shoot 'Em Up has many cleverly choreographed scenes, even if they are not to your liking. The opening sequence where Owen delivers and rescues the baby is potentially startling, but I was waiting for a voice to shout "cut" and reveal it was a bad movie-within-a-movie. It never came. I had to resign myself to the fact that, for me, this really was just a bad movie.